In December we were invited to see the progress that is being made in China. As part of the invitation, we were given the opportunity to choose a location for our Chinese base of operations. Some of these were newly built and some of these were still under construction which allowed us to have first pick of any location we were offered. Left, a picture of Ovando Carter being introduced to the buildings being made in Nanjing that will be used in the medical district. See pictures on right, from top to bottom, Changshu, Nangjing Jiangbei New area, Suzhou Creative Young community, and Suzhou Wuzhong Economic Development Zone.
Nanjing Jiangbei New Area offers several advantages for development. With a planning area of 788 square kilometers, it covers Pukou district, Luhe district and Baguazhou sub-district of Qixia district. It encompasses a group of industrial parks such as the Nanjing New and High Technology Industry Development Zone, Nanjing Cross-Strait Technology Industry Park, Nanjing Chemical Industrial Park, and two ports along with Yangtze River, namely Xiba and Qiba. Nanjing Jiangbei New Area now has more than 50 scientific and technological innovation platforms as well as engineering and technology centers, with more than 100 high-tech enterprises and research and development institutions based there. In line with the national strategic orientation, Nanjing Jiangbei New Area aims to become a hub for
innovation, a demonstration area for a new-type urbanization, a cluster of modern industries in the Yangtze River Delta region and a major platform for opening-up and incorporating the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
Changshu was one of the first locations visited in December. It is located in southeastern Jiangsu Province and at the southwest coast of the Yangtze River, which has convenient transport links connecting many important cities. Changshu has an ancient history and culture and is considered to be one of the famous ecological cities in China. Changshu has developed a number of development zones, such as Economic and Technological Development Zone, Southeast Development Zone, High-tech Industrial Park, New Materials Industrial Park and export processing zones, which boosts the development of the textile industry, machinery, electronics and other industries. To date, Changshu holds a position within the top ten cities in China for business and technology.
Suzhou Creative Young Community is the first Integrated business community in the Yangtze River Delta. It has a full-featured technology incubator carrier with total size of 130,000 square meters. Based on the National Smart Manufacturing 2025 Development Strategy, it has aided in the development of many products, and fostered research projects in Tsinghua University, Suzhou University among other Universities in the region. These all fall in line with the implementation of the Suzhou innovation action plan. This project is characterised by business innovation, industry innovation, space, media, and finance, with the aim to build a complex business community around intelligent manufacturing, industrial design and mobile Internet.
After 15 years of development and construction, Suzhou Wuzhong Economic Development Zone has developed into a cluster of advanced manufacturing industry in Suzhou and a modern industrial city. At present, the development zone has gathered 4957 Chinese and foreign enterprises, including 780 foreign-funded enterprises with registered capital of 7.11 billion US dollars, and 4,177 domestic and private enterprises with total registered 34.11 billion yuan. These enterprises formed a high-tech industry cluster with the electronic information, precision machinery, bio-medicine, fine chemicals, new materials and new energy industries.